.358 Win

Rob said:
Got some once fired .308 brass. Ran them through my Lee .358. Win dies, lubricated inside and out...Loaded up some .358 ammunition. BUT....No matter what I do, they will not chamber in my rifle. I tried chambering some unloaded brass....the bolt will not close on them...what is the problem? Is the Lee sizing die not sizing properly. Am I not running them deep enough into the die? I thought the only difference between .358 Win and .308 was the diamenter of the bullet? Any suggestions?
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Just a suggestion and only werth whut you paid for it.
Try chambering the .308win brass before you run it through the die.
If it does chamber without issue, then compare the before and after brass.
You need one of each to do this.
Something doesn't sound right as I have done this ample times without any issues.
Mind you, my dies are of the green box sort.
 
358 factory brass is possible.. likely a long wait though.

I would just form from 308 brass of which supply is far easier.

But if you need the brass and barrel stamp to match to go on a hunt, there is a solution.

Jerry
 
Rob said:
Got some once fired .308 brass. Ran them through my Lee .358. Win dies, lubricated inside and out...Loaded up some .358 ammunition. BUT....No matter what I do, they will not chamber in my rifle. I tried chambering some unloaded brass....the bolt will not close on them...what is the problem? Is the Lee sizing die not sizing properly. Am I not running them deep enough into the die? I thought the only difference between .358 Win and .308 was the diamenter of the bullet? Any suggestions?
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- I would try new brass and see if that works. If the chamber it was fired in prior was a bit large, it may not size down enough to fit yours. I have seen this several times with range pick up brass.
- Maybe small base dies would size it down enough to fit.
 
SuperCub said:
- I would try new brass and see if that works. If the chamber it was fired in prior was a bit large, it may not size down enough to fit yours. I have seen this several times with range pick up brass.
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And/or try a pc of factory 308 ammo and see if that chambers. i think new brass will help.
 
No immediate access to new .308 brass, no factory .308 ammo, and no example of factory .358 Win ammo....

...But I figured it out...sort of. I had not annealed any of the brass before I resized them and thought that just maybe, if I annealed them and then ran them through the sizing die again, it might make a difference...not sure why, but it did...after annealing my mixed lot of 50 brass I was able to find 21 that chambered...so that's enough to at least do some preliminary shooting. Imperial, Winchester and Remington brass all chambered after being annealed and run through the sizing die again. The rest of the brass was Federal and not a chance would it chamber even after annealing.

(My Dumoulin carbine with FN Mauser-98 action with controlled round feed will lift an empty brass case out of the magazine and chamber it straight in. Not a lot of Mausers can do that with empty brass.)

Back home in Alberta, I would probably have just driven into town, had a choice of at least three or four different well-stocked gunstores and grabbed either a bag of new .358 brass or .308 brass. Here in the Maritimes, deep behind Liberal lines, its not so easy. But they're paying me too much to leave.
 
I finally got around to shooting this rifle. But the reformed .308 brass still gave problems...It was one thing to chamber it, but I hadn't expected it to be so difficult to extract after firing....very difficult in some cases...so I now completely give up on ever using .308 brass and I have now purchased a good supply of new .358 Win brass. On the plus side the Dumoulin .358 carbine turned out to very accurate and easy on the shoulder.
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Rob said:
I finally got around to shooting this rifle. But the reformed .308 brass still gave problems...It was one thing to chamber it, but I hadn't expected it to be so difficult to extract after firing....very difficult in some cases...so I now completely give up on ever using .308 brass and I have now purchased a good supply of new .358 Win brass.
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1. Was the brass new or once fired. New might work better.
2. Inspect the chamber for rust. I once had a 7x57 that gave me fits with new brass and light loads only to find out there was very light surface rust causing brass to stick after firing. It was hardly noticeable to the eye, just a bit dull/matte in appearance. Once I polished it, all was fine.
 
I fire-formed all my .308 cases into .358 by loading 11.5 grains of Bullseye and tamped down and held in place by two or three cotton balls. This was done in Browning Lever Action Old Model with no problems whatsoever except that the barrel heats up. Perfectly formed cases ready to be reloaded.
 
I have plenty of brand new .358 Win. brass now and will use it in the future...thanks for all the good advice though.
 
257Roberts said:
Made some 358 brass from 30-06 once.
It was just a project to see if it was worth the effort and it was a lot of fun as well.




David
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I did the same thing when I needed 358Win brass.
The problem with necking up 308 Win brass is two fold....
First, no matter how even the neck of 308 Win brass is, after the expanding it comes out thinner in one place than another.
Secondly, during the neck expansion brass ends up thinner all around to start with, follow it with neck cutter to equalize the thickness and you might not like what you see....
IMHO necking down 3006 plentiful brass never leads to such problems, its easy, trimming and neck turning (plenty of brass left for superior fit)
is painless as well
and even without fireforming produces better quality brass that can be used right a way.
GR8 2c worth.
 
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I continue to have problems with .358 brass. I am using new Winchester brass but it is still very difficult to chamber and extract (even unloaded sized brass)...I am beginning to think that the problem lies with my cheapskate Lee dies...I usually use RCBS and Hornady but couldn't find any for .358 Win. So I bought new Lee dies on the internet. However, I think the brass is not being resized enough.

I see some new Redding dies for sale. Anyone have experience with that company?
 
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Nothing wrong with LEE dies,..I have 2 sets of 358win LEE dies and they resize brass just fine,..they resize 308win brass up to 358 very easily ,..I have even resized 7-08 brass up to 358 with no trouble at all. Redding dies seem to be good, I have a set in 7-08,.. only problem is the expander ball is quite flat faced with little taper, so resizing smaller caliber brass "up" isn't going to happen, but I have resized 308 "down" to 7-08 with no problem. Redding dies are of good quality.
 
If new unloaded brass won't chamber, I suspect the problem lies with the rifle. While I resize all new brass before I load them, I have never had a piece that would not chamber beforehand anyway. May have a tight chamber, maybe the reamer was getting worn. Maybe a small base sizing die will help.
 
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